COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Post-Budget three-day surge slows, Sensex down 36 points to 3601.96

Pivotals suffered a moderate setback at the Bombay Stock Exchange due to profit-taking induced by selling pressure by speculators and institutional investors today.

The 30-scrip BSE Sensex opened on a firm note at 3660.40 points, inched up to touch the day's high at 3662.47 but fell sharply to the day's low of 3563.15 points in the afternoon trade, dealers said. The Sensex, however, closed above the 3600 level, at 3601.96 points, on renewed buying support in select scrips from institutional investors towards the fag end, finally loosing 38.46 points from the previous close of 3640.42 points.

''After registering a whopping gain of 406 points in the last three straight sessions, the market was headed for such a correction,'' said Jignesh Shah, assistant vice president (research) at the Triumph International Finance.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also moved down by 23.74 points at 1581.63 points as against the previous clsoe of 1605.37 points.

According to marketmen, the FIIs made considerable purchases in Hindustan Lever, ITC, SBI Gwalior. The Unit Trust of India has reportedly bought select shares at lower level, they said.

The IPCL counter witnessed heavy selling pressure. The counter witnessed only sellers, dealers said.

The current market favourites, infotech stocks like Satyam Computers, Infosys Technologies, Digital Equipment, BFL Software declined sharply. The pharma leaders Glaxo, E Merck and Novartis also moved down considerably.

The bank scrips, however, continued to be gainers and barring SBI, the Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank shares hit the upward circuits, dealers said. The SBI gained moderately by 4.5 per cent, they said.

SRG Infotech witnessed hectic acvitity, the scrips lost by eight per cent and about 1.03 million shares changed hands today. Interestingly, the scrip has showed considerable gain in last couple of months. It was quoted below Rs five, two months back was available at Rs 25.The scrip closed at about Rs 22, dealers said.

Country's another leading bourse, the National Stock Exchange also witnessed downtrend today. The S&P CNX Nifty index opened at 1056.85, touched a day's high of 1060.55 points, fell to the day's low of 1030.45 points before closing at 1041.20 points, showing a net loss of 10.65 points or 1.01 per cent from the previous close of 1051.85.

Back at the BSE, the BSE-200 and Dollex indices eased by 5.38 and 2.03 points to 362.63 and 141.96 points from the previous close of 368.01 and 143.99 points respectively.

UNI

Business news